I'm A Joker, I'm an(ex) Smoker.....

Ordinangst is very lucky to be going to a theological college that takes preaching training very seriously. Ordinangst is learning lots and lots about preaching – when he arrived at the college with his trunk and tuckbox he thought (quietly) he was pretty good at it already – but now he realises how wrong he was. Ordinangst has been taught to reveal his own inadequacy and weakness to allow God to speak through him to the congregation. All a bit of a revelation to this over-achieving Ordinand who had seen preaching as, well, a bit of a lecture from an “expert” (Ordinangst is blushing to his (diminishing) roots to admit this, dear reader.)

One thing that Ordinangst has been taught is to use humour (wisely) in sermons. Although people like Spurgeon could famously hold a congregation’s attention for hours and hours without a single joke this is clearly unusual. Ordinangst has seen lots of other people try this over the years and it never works. Humour should be used – first because God himself clearly has a sense of humour (if you ever got to see Ordinangst’s ears you would know this to be true) and it is a legitimate and valid way to express God’s loving relationship to us through laughter. Second, because humour breaks the tension nicely, and stops sermons feeling like missile throwing competitions. Third, because, according to one very brainy teacher, the average person’s concentration span is around five minutes – especially if they are sitting still. If you make the congregation laugh every five minutes – so the theory goes – they shift around in their seats, more blood is pumped to their brains and they are primed to listen to another five minutes of stellar sermonising. Before they need another joke again. And so on.

If this is the case, it crosses Ordinangst’s mind that there must be a great wealth of sermon jokes out there that we (my humble and growing network) could be sharing with one another. Sort of like an on-line church-fete-bring-and-buy-sale-for-jokes. So, with much fanfare, Ordinangst is launching this today – click here to post a joke, or to browse other peoples’ if the well of your own humour is running dry. Ordinangst will help harvesting and posting other people’s jokes from sermons which will help him to concentrate in the future. And...voila...by the time he's ordained, Ordinangst should have enough new material to last him his whole ministry!